CTV Highlights Fake news from Gaza
UN Official Spews Blood Libel, and Canada's most popular news network uncritically repeats it
Last week we introduced Adam Louis-Klein who wrote about the irrational malice at the heart of antizionism. Klein told us that antizionism rests on a premise that Israel is fundamentally evil. That premise is used to make plausible even the most bizarre and obviously false claims about Israel’s actions. This “evidence” is in turn used to justify the original premise. Thus a circular argument establishes Israel in the popular imagination as fundamentally evil.
He wrote:
Antizionism is not a form of policy critique. It is a holistic ideology—rooted in Nazi, Soviet, and Islamist genealogies—that targets the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood and sovereignty. Its logic is circular: it begins with the presumption that Israel is uniquely evil, and uses that presumption to render even the most implausible accusations believable. Those accusations are then used to reaffirm the original premise. Israel must be evil—look at what it's accused of.
This week we had an opportunity to see this process in action.
A Story to Outrage the Entire World
On May 20, 2025, a lead story on the CTV national news, began with the headline that “14000 babies would die in Gaza in the next 48 hours if Israel didn’t stop blocking aid.” The story, which begins at 4:45 in the video linked in the first line of this paragraph, refers to a “shocking warning from the United Nations that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die within 48 hours if aid doesn’t reach them right away.” The reporter then goes on to say that mothers milk in Gaza is drying up due to malnutrition. They then cut to a clip of UN Aid coordinator Tom Fletcher repeating that “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.” The report moves to a shot of an MP in the British Parliament saying, “Prime Minister Netanyahu, end this blockade!”, followed by a report that the leaders of Canada, Britain and France have threatened sanctions unless Israel ends its current offensive in Gaza, and ends all restrictions on aid.
Next we see Ahmed Jaber, a Canadian of Palestinian origin who says “Why would Israel stop food"?”. Asked by the reporter what he thinks the answer is, he replies, “Killing. Genocide.” We then see an image of Benjamin Netanyahu. The reporter states that Netanyahu denies that the purpose is genocide and that the British, French and Canadians are handing a reward to Hamas for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7. An Israeli woman is shown next, denouncing the western leaders for “virtue signaling for their voters.” Finally the clip returns to the Ahmed Jaber who says, “Let Gaza live. That’s my plea.”
It was not just Canada’s CTV news that repeated the story about the 14,000 babies who would die in the next 48 hours. This claim was repeated in this ABC news report. Below we see a headline for a report from the web site of the UK Independent.
Image: Screen Capture from the UK independent, May 21, 2025
Dozens of other links offer the same information. All of these stories are still available on line as of the evening of May 21, 2025.
BBC Retraction
The original claim by the UN official, Tom Fletcher occurred on a BBC 4 radio broadcast, according to this report in Business News. The report also states that BBC has corrected it. Business News is an online business publication based in New York, but originally based in Beijing . This was the only place we could find, outside Israeli media in which the retraction of the false claim by Fletcher is reported.
On X, a poster called Israel War Room shared this screen shot of a BBC “clarification” of what Fletcher had said on its broadcast:
The CTV National News on May 21, neither apologized nor corrected the erroneous report from the night before. Instead they moved on to a new report aimed at putting Israel in a bad light. Today’s story involved an unannounced and unauthorized visit by diplomats to a zone where the IDF was operating in Jenin. The IDF fired warning shots into the air, and Prime Minister Carney took the opportunity at a press conference to talk about the “many unacceptable events” that were happening in the region.
Suspension of Disbelief
Forty eight hours have now gone by and we are happy to report that no babies have starved in Gaza. The question is, why would a senior UN official say such an obviously false thing and why would supposedly reputable media world-wide credulously report it?
It makes sense when you realize that the international organizations and the media are operating under the influence antizionist ideology. As Adam Louis-Klein wrote above,
Its logic is circular: it begins with the presumption that Israel is uniquely evil, and uses that presumption to render even the most implausible accusations believable.
That is exactly what is happening here. The death toll in Gaza, according to the UN count which relies on the Gaza Ministry of Health is just over 50,000. When someone claims that in two days, 14,000 more will die, one would expect a responsible journalist to stop and ask whether this number makes any sense. But because Israel is believed, a priori, to be capable of any conceivable evil, this critical faculty is disabled.
Adam Louis-Klein continues in the quote above to say
Those accusations are then used to reaffirm the original premise. Israel must be evil—look at what it's accused of.
Again we see this exact process at work. The widespread dissemination of this absurd report, serves to reinforce the view of an increasing portion of the population that Israel is fundamentally evil.
Spreading resentment of Israel is reinforces increasing hostility against Jews in North America. This is reflected in rising levels of violence against Jewish institutions and individuals. Attackers generally claim that they oppose Zionism and have nothing against Jews, but the harm caused by an attack on a school or a synagogue in the name of antizionism is the same as that caused by an attack due undisguised hatred of Jews.
A Jew beaten up because he is a Zionist suffers the same harm as a Jew beaten up for being Christ killer or a race polluter. The ever rising insecurity of the Jewish community is not mitigated by the fact that those promoting hatred against them insist that they are only opposed to Zionists.
What can we do?
Antisemitism is an affliction of society. As our friend Terry Glavin once wrote, “Antisemitism is not about Jews. It’s about power.” Organized antisemitism is a strategy for gaining power over society as a whole.
Jews are not the cause of antisemitism, nor are they responsible for fixing it. However, we can and should speak out against defamation when it is promoted in our media and echoed by our political leaders. This article is one example of an effort to do that.
The most important thing we can do is continue to live proudly as Jews. We must resist the efforts to shame, silence or intimidate us. Instead we should seek to strengthen our connections to our community and deepen our knowledge of our history and tradition. Wear your star of David or your kippah proudly in public.
If, God forbid, the power of antisemites in Canada reaches the point that Jewish life here is no longer viable, we have an advantage that Jews did not have before 1948. We have a Jewish state that will take us in if we ever have to flee. That’s yet another reason to speak out against, and resist, the efforts of antizionists in Canada, whether those antizionists are inside or outside the Jewish community.
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Thank you to everyone for reading Canadian Zionist Forum.
It is terrible. And the worst thing is that only limited sources correct the fake news, and then no one else picks it up.
The brilliance of the terrorist media machine is unapparelled these days. And as you highlighted, the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic sentiments allows the fake news to spread, and then spread again. I am grateful to be on the UJA Walk With Israel tomorrow, where I can share the pride and the love and the truth.